Quote Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh

While trying to establish reasonable "living wage" norms for an industry is not an inherently bad concept for unions, regrettably, the pattern bargaining tactic has been too frequently used in an extortionate manner. We really do have situations now, especially in automotive, where companies are carrying workers to do virtually nothing -- pure waste cost -- and this leaves the companies less competitive. Too many of our union leaders implicitly believe that the jobs are a right that will and must always be maintained -- regardless of economic realities and have NOT done a lot with their unions to make their workers better/stronger/smarter. The answer always seems to be "force the company to give us more" without also paying attention to "how do we aid our workers in becoming more valuable as workers" (and therefore less prone to being let go).


Very good. My friend's dad a couple days ago was telling me how they were paying people 60 dollars an hour to cut the grass.